COLUMBIA, S.C. — Rain has been very hard to come by over the past few months here in the Carolinas. Over the weekend, wet conditions saw rain falling for the first time this month. Officially .64 inches of rain fell in Columbia with some areas seeing locally higher amounts.
While this might seem like a good amount of rain it turns out we need a lot more to make a dent in our ongoing drought conditions. According to data from NOAA, many parts of the state need multiple inches of rain on top of what we normally see to get out of drought within the next 30 days.
This means that rain this weekend realistically didn’t do too much to get rid of dry conditions and there is a very simple reason for this.
Drought causes our soils to dry out in the top 3 feet closest to the surface. When we get small rains like we saw this weekend the first few inches of ground might get wet. With low dewpoints and dry weather returning though, that top layer can dry out in as little as a day.
That is why the frequency of rainfall is almost more important than the amount of rain when trying to get out of a drought.
Unfortunately, this week, the pattern only points to more dry weather which will likely worsen conditions in the region.
There is some good news past this upcoming week though. The end of November and early December are trending wetter in the latest model outlooks which could provide some improvement in current conditions.
